On This Day In Judy Garland’s Life And Career – September 8

September 8, 1938: Judy appeared on the Maxwell House-sponsored radio show, “Good News of 1939.” She sang: “In-Between”; “My Lucky Star”; and “Could You Pass In Love?”, the latter performed with Robert Young, Meredith Willson, and Frank Morgan.

Photos: Clipping of Judy featuring a photo taken during a “Good News” broadcast with the show’s director Bill Bacher. Rare disc photo from the John Newton Collection. Thanks, John!

September 8, 1940: Judy’s mom settles Judy’s dilemma of who to date. Plus, Judy gets her makeup touched up on the set of Strike Up The Band, although by this date Judy was already finished with that film and was in the middle of filming Little Nellie Kelly.

September 8, 1940: Here’s an interesting notice that features a rare image of the new pool just after installation at Judy’s home at 1231 Stone Canyon Road in the Bel Air section of the greater Los Angeles area. The image is used as an example of what the Paddock Engineering Company could achieve. Wouldn’t it be great if the scale model of this pool with the pool house that’s mentioned in the clipping survived?

September 8, 1941: Filming continued on Babes on Broadway with scenes shot on the “Interior Auditorium” set, the ultimately deleted “Sketch” scene. The “Sketch” was “The Convict’s Return” which was intended to showcase Mickey Rooney’s talents. He played eight roles making quick changes behind the scene in one take. The footage doesn’t exist but the music underscoring for the scene has survived and is on the Rhino Record 4-CD set “Mickey & Judy – The Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney Collection.” Time called: 9 a.m.; lunch: 12:25-1:25 p.m.; time dismissed: 5:55 p.m.

Also on this day this article this fun article about how Judy’s able to “face the facts” about her appearance, making it sound as though MGM was happy with her just the way she was.

Photos provided by Kim Lundgreen. Thanks, Kim!

September 8, 1943: The Third War Loan “Hollywood Cavalcade” war bond tour officially began in Washington, DC. The tour lasted all of September visiting a total of 16 cities (including DC). For the kick-off in DC, there was a parade to the Washington Monument for the opening ceremony/festivities plus a nationwide radio hookup from the White House featuring a speech by President Roosevelt that began at 9 p.m. “EWT” (Eastern Standard Time), 6 p.m. PWT (Pacific). The stars then boarded their train at midnight and headed to their first stop, Philadelphia.

One newspaper report mentioned: “Riding in jeeps behind the army airforces band, the dozen movie personalities went to the Washington Monument grounds where the army opened a “back the attack” display of weapons and equipment.”

Photos: Two clippings featuring photos from the DC event of Judy with a WAC and with Mickey Rooney, Paul Henreid, and Greer Garson; plus a notice of Judy going on the tour. Note how that clipping references Judy’s work schedule and her dating Van Johnson. There was a lot of talk in the papers about Judy dating Van Johnson. This info was studio-fed as Johnson was the studio’s up and coming new matinee idol. The two never seriously dated. Also included are a few notices for the stops at Boston and Pittsburgh.

Below, Movietone News footage of the Washington event. Note that for the first 10 minutes, there isn’t any sound.

September 8, 1944: Filming continued on The Clockwith scenes shot on the “Interior Alice’s Apartment” set. Time called: 10 a.m. The assistant director’s notes state: Miss Garland called for 10 a.m. – arrived 10:13 – ready rehearsal; 10:13-10:30 – Rehearsed for director; 10:42-10:48 – Addition line and light after rehearsal; 10:42-10:48 – wait for director to return from projection room – meanwhile finish makeup, hair and wardrobe for Miss Garland. Director back at 10:45; continued waiting for Miss Garland to be ready for shooting – ready at 10:48. Time dismissed: 6:15 p.m.

September 8, 1946: New parents Judy and Vincente Minnelli took a break and went on the town.

September 8, 1950: Judy’s appearance on Jack Eigen’s show on WMGM the day before was mentioned in this article that claimed Judy would soon appear in a TV series.

The second clipping is amusing. The uncredited author for the “Manhattan Mercury” out of Manhattan, Kansas, mistakenly gave the fairy tale that Judy starred in as Alice in Wonderland rather than The Wizard of Oz. Apparently, the person had never seen Oz and confused it with that other book about a girl in a strange and fantastic land.

This last clipping is for the extended short film Moments in Music which featured archival footage of Judy and many other stars, made for The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Judy is seen in a clip from the finale of Ziegfeld Girl that cleverly places her on top of that giant wedding cake set from 1936’s The Great Ziegfeld.

September 8, 1950: Here’s another movie tie-in, this time it’s the tractor in Summer Stock which was the latest Ford tractor model on display at the Erie-co Fall Festival in Erie County, New York. Seen in the photo with Judy is the film’s director, Charles Walters.

September 8, 1952: The news of Judy’s recent contract between her new production company, Transcona, and Warner Bros. to make three films, hit the papers. The one film that resulted from the contract was, of course, the masterpiece A Star Is Born.

September 8, 1957: Judy’s upcoming engagement at The Dominion Theatre in London, England, (on October 16th) is the subject of this article out of Sydney, Australia. According to the article the theater’s owner, Lord Rank, spent 40,000 pounds restoring it back into a live theater. It had been a film theater for 27 years. The article is negative towards Judy, calling her “Jinx-ridden” and hinting that she might flop which would be the end of her career. Luckily that didn’t happen!

September 8, 1957: This notice and ad promoted Judy’s upcoming week-long engagement at the Mastbaum Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (beginning on September 26th). What’s interesting about the ad is that it uses an image of a much younger Judy which was rare for the time.

September 8, 1960: The “Paris Match” magazine feature these photos from Judy’s recent return to the London Palladium (August 28). Note that the clipping is stamped for September 19, 1960, which is when the clipping was cut from the magazine for archival use.

September 8, 1963: Here’s a wonderful two-page spread by illustrated by Al Hirschfeld as published in the Chicago Tribune. The paper featured a two-page spread illustrated by Hirschfeld for every day of the week promoting the upcoming fall TV season.

September 8, 1963: Here’s a notice and ad for Judy’s upcoming concert at the Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan.

September 8, 1967: The first of a two-night engagement for Judy at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. Judy played to capacity audiences in the 3,000-seat theater. “Variety” noted that she grossed $45,000 for the two nights.

This recording made from a fan in the audience, while not the greatest sound quality, is all we have from this engagement.

September 8, 1989: The Wizard of Oz was the first of a series of expanded soundtrack CDs from CBS Records (CBS Special Products). The series featured recordings taken directly from the soundtracks of the films themselves rather than from the original pre-recordings or the M-G-M Records albums. Although these CDs had the “complete” soundtracks available for the first time, they were confined to what ended up on the screen in the finished films but they were more than had ever been released on LP or CD and were a welcome addition to fans’ audio collections. A few of the CDs included an outtake or two.

In the case of this Oz soundtrack, it was presented as the previous records had been, with “music and dramatic selections” from the film this time expanded to include more dialog and finally the inclusion of “The Merry Old Land Of Oz.” The bonus on this CD is the first official release of “The Jitterbug” outtake.

As an added bonus, the CD included an offer to purchase a special 50th-anniversary poster.

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3 comments

Wow!!! That 1943 war bond footage was simply fascinating! I’d never seen it before. Other than ‘St. Louis”, I’m not a big fan of Judy with bangs. I don’t feel she looked nearly as pretty here as she could have (I love the “Lily Mars”/”Girl Crazy” do, which really framed her face beautifully).

A bit eerie to see Betty Hutton with Judy. Little did anyone know that Hutton would replace Garland in “Annie” at the end of the decade.

Final curio: Lucille Ball was probably the only “B” star there. Little did anyone realize that with that miracle “I Love Lucy”, she would become a legend as big as Judy, Cagney and Astaire. Hutton…a forgotten mess by the middle of the following decade.

It’s too bad that there is no kinnie tv film prints or video footage of the hosts/performers..who did the live hosting segments for CBS TV’s annual screening of “The Wizard of Oz”in 1956,1959,1960,1961,1962 and 1964.